


every breath we drew was hallelujah

by spaceburgers



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-03 23:42:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6631828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceburgers/pseuds/spaceburgers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dino takes Kyouya to Rome.</p>
            </blockquote>





	every breath we drew was hallelujah

**Author's Note:**

> happy belated birthday, jc! i can't believe i wrote this, please don't ever speak of this to me ever again, it's 2016 jfc
> 
> i know you asked for something else entirely but that something else was so cheesy i dare not even type it here. instead have two thousand words of dino being an emo old man, and also feelings about rome
> 
> title from hallelujah by jeff buckley, because if i'm gonna do this i might as well be completely shameless while i'm at it

Dino takes Kyouya to Rome.

He says, “Rome is a beautiful city, Kyouya, and I want to show you around.”

He doesn’t say: _this city is as much a part of me as the blood in my veins and the bones in body_. He doesn’t say: _when you walk down each street corner and past every building and storefront it feels like you’re looking right into the deepest, darkest parts of me._ He doesn’t say: _I want to take you to the church I used to go to every Sunday morning to and the park I used to play in as a child. I want to kiss you behind my old elementary school with its towering brick walls and hold your hand when we walk past the back alley where I first saw someone die. I want to watch you while you look at this city I love. I want you to belong here as much as I want you to belong by my side._

Instead he says, “It’ll be fun. We can act like tourists on holiday.”

Kyouya says, “We _are_ on holiday.”

Dino just grins. Kyouya looks at him strangely, but doesn’t say anything in response.

-

The Cavallone family has safe houses all across the country, and several in Rome. Dino takes Kyouya to their smallest one (a simple two-story affair with Dino’s men downstairs) because the grand ones, the ones they use to receive foreign visitors and entertain men from the other mafia families have never sat right with Dino. Maybe it’s the crystal chandeliers and the marble busts and the portraits hanging across the walls—too ostentatious, too cold. Maybe it’s the knowledge that blood has been spilled in sitting rooms and upstairs bedrooms and basements that the servants don’t know about— _will_ continue to be spilled for generations to come, so long as the Cavallone family continues to exist.

This house, on the other hand, is homely and quiet, wooden floors and wallpaper beginning to show the first signs of age. He didn’t grow up here, but he came here often anyway, an escape for his moody teenaged self. It remains an escape now, he thinks, as he shows Kyouya to their bedroom (up the stairs, down the hall, second door to the left.) He stands in the doorway, watching as Kyouya eyes the four-poster bed, the ornate wooden dresser. He sets his luggage down in a corner of the room, turns to look at Dino.

“Are you just going to stand there?” he says.

Dino blinks, shakes himself.

“Sorry.” He grins, steps towards Kyouya, presses his lips against his cheek, is relieved when Kyouya doesn’t move away. “What do you want to do first?”

Kyouya regards him, something flickering in his gaze. He lifts one hand, lays it across Dino’s chest, uses it as leverage to push him towards the bed.

“Oh,” Dino says, faintly. “I guess the sightseeing can wait.”

-

They’re been dating ( _dating? The word feels strange on Dino’s tongue, like it falls so far short of whatever_ this _may be_ ) for several years now. Dino has watched as Kyouya has grown from a surly teenager to a surly young man; his hair is shorter, now, and he’s taller, but there are parts of him that are still the same: porcelain skin, sharp eyes, a smile that is at once deadly and beautiful.

He ponders this as they sit across each other at lunch. Kyouya is attacking his plate of pasta like it’s personally offended him in some past life, and instead of finding it distasteful Dino just thinks it’s perfectly charming, which his how he knows he’s totally and completely gone—which he’s always known anyway, so it’s not much of a revelation. But still.

“Would you like to visit the Colosseum later?” he asks. Kyouya hums noncommittally and continues stabbing his fork into his plate of gnocchi. Dino thinks that probably means yes.

So they do all the touristy things. They see the Colosseum and the Pantheon and the Roman Forum. The next day they go to Vatican City, the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter’s Basilica. It’s not as crowded as he thought it’d be, but there’s still a lot of people. Kyouya takes Dino’s hand and digs his fingernails into the back of his palm. Self-restraint. Dino’s proud of him, in spite of the fact that he’s pretty sure Kyouya’s digging into his skin hard enough to draw blood, because five years ago Kyouya wouldn’t have been able to stand this, much less the plane flight to even get here; instead he just keeps quiet as Dino rambles on about Italian history, religion, the ancient Romans and the great artists of old. Even if Kyouya isn’t really listening it still makes him happy anyway, the fact that he can talk freely like this. Progress. It’s progress.

And then the day after that, Dino takes Kyouya by the arm and guides him past the throngs of tourists, straight into the heart of Rome.

He takes him past the seedy back streets, through the wide-open squares, the old houses with their chipped paint and faded bricks.

“This is where I grew up,” he says.

The residents and shopkeepers here all recognize him, even though it’s been years since he’s come to this particular neighborhood. They’re under Cavallone protection, and they are friendly to him, for the most part. He’s worked hard to stop them from being afraid of him, yet he still sees it sometimes, in the way they look at him—the older ones know what things were like before the Cavallone family gained control of the area; they know what he is capable of.

Still, they are warm and generous people. Francesca, the old lady who runs the sweetshop he used to frequent in his younger days (Romario, ever vigilant, standing watch outside) comes up to him, musses his hair just like she used to when he was eight.

She says in Italian, “Look at you! So grown up now. So handsome.”

Dino laughs, asks her about the shop, the neighborhood, _how’s your son been doing_ and _I’m so sorry to hear about your husband_.

And then she turns to Kyouya and says, “Now who’s this fine young man?”

Kyouya turns to Dino. Dino looks back at him.

“He’s my,” he says, and he knows Kyouya doesn’t understand what he’s saying but Kyouya’s looking at him like he knows exactly what Dino’s going to say anyway, and Dino’s mind goes blank.

“My better half,” he says, and then stops.

“Oh,” Francesca says. Her eyes are wide. Dino holds his breath. “That’s wonderful, Dino!”

And then suddenly, he can breathe easy again.

“Thank you,” he says, grinning, wide and relieved. Kyouya’s still looking at him with narrowed eyes, and Dino turns to look back at him. He thinks he sees the corner of Kyouya’s mouth twitch. Amusement. Dino’s smile widens. “He makes me a better person.”

“What are you telling her?” Kyouya asks, in Japanese. Dino laughs.

“Only the good things,” he promises. Kyouya raises an impressively arched eyebrow.

And so they move on: the grocery store, the park, the old houses. They see more residents, some that Dino recognizes, some that he doesn’t. They all greet him when they see him, some more enthusiastic than others. Dino takes Kyouya’s hand, and no one comments on it. Kyouya is quiet through most of it, observing rather than speaking. When he does speak it’s in Japanese, a cutting comment here or there to make sure Dino isn’t saying anything incriminating about him. He couldn’t ever say anything bad about Kyouya, though, and he tells him as much, which just makes Kyouya fall silent and look away.

And then Dino takes Kyouya to the church.

It’s a quiet weekday evening, so there’s almost no one there; it’s an old church in a not-so-nice part of town, not exactly your average tourist fare. From the outside it looks like it’s about to crumble, the paint fading over time to reveal the sturdy bricks underneath. The sign of the cross on the door, however, is sturdy and solid as ever. It was there in his grandfather’s time, and in his father’s time, and it will be there when he is dead too. It’s almost a comforting thought, he thinks, the idea of permanence, and when he takes Kyouya inside that musty, familiar smell almost makes Dino feel like a small child again, sitting in the pews, wedged between his mother and his father, head bowed as he listened to the strange and beautiful Latin sermons— _In nómine Patris, et Fílii, et Spíritus Sancti. Amen._

He has not gone to church in a while, and he doesn’t think of himself as particularly religious anymore. Still, he finds himself taking a seat near the back anyway. He’s dimly aware of Kyouya sitting down next to him, and he wonders what he must think of all this: a religion so unfamiliar to him in a land so far away from home, in an old _basilica_ with paint peeling from the walls and its old rickety pews; the only excess in this small church is the gilded crucifix nailed above the altar. How do you explain religion to a boy who’s really more of a god? What must he be thinking as he watches Dino keep his head bowed, running prayers he’d thought long forgotten through his head ( _forgive me my sins O Lord, forgive me the sins of my youth and the sins of mine age_ ), apologizing for the things that he has done and for the things he has yet to do?

He is a killer in a church. The irony of it never would have occurred to him as a child, the fact that every Sunday morning the pews would be packed with his father and his men, unclean hands clasped together in prayer—and here he is now, doing the exact same thing.

He did not ask for this life, but it is the life he leads nonetheless.

“What are you thinking?” Kyouya says, startling Dino. He opens his eyes, and Kyouya is there, looking at him. His eyes are bright in the dimness of the church. He looks almost ethereal.

“Nothing,” Dino replies. He takes Kyouya’s hand in his, the second time today, runs his thumb over the back of Kyouya’s hand. He has always marveled over how smooth they are in spite of years of battle and hardship. Kyouya’s hands are smooth and pale, long slender fingers and carefully trimmed nails. They curl around Dino’s own hand now, holding on.

“I know why you brought me here,” he says, after a moment’s pause.

“To this church?”

“To your home.”

Dino looks up from their joined hands; he sees Kyouya’s face, handsome and somber as always. He thinks, suddenly, of Kyouya’s uncharacteristic tolerance over the past few days; Kyouya, who just a year ago swore that he would never leave Namimori, Kyouya, who rarely, if ever, expresses interest in anything outside of his immediate world view. Kyouya, the boy who loves tiny birds and baby hedgehogs and _Dino_ _himself_ , for reasons he is still unable to comprehend, who came to this foreign land with its strange tongue and unfamiliar streets, this ancient city that holds parts of Dino that he still cannot bring himself to fully explain; Kyouya, who is holding his hand now in this old, crumbling church that Dino has known his entire life; Kyouya, beautiful, impossible Kyouya, who inexplicably belongs here with him.

Dino has always been a sentimental man.

“I love you,” he says in Italian, his voice cracking. He repeats it again, in Japanese this time.

“I know what that means,” Kyouya says. “I’m not stupid.”

“I know. I’m the stupid one.”

“I never said that.”

“It was heavily implied.”

Kyouya is quiet, but he squeezes Dino’s hand, so gentle in spite of all that Kyouya is not.

“Thank you,” Dino says, finally. Kyouya leans against him, shuts his eyes. He doesn’t say anything more, and he doesn’t have to.

Rome _is_ a beautiful city.


End file.
